Entrepreneur Jonathan Carson to Give Talk to BLI

The Barger Leadership Institute welcomes entrepreneur Jonathan Carson to campus for a talk on his entrepreneurial journey on April 9, 2014 entitled "Entrepreneurship - A Real Life Story."

by Tiffany J. Purnell

Jonathan will define the entrepreneur and their roles in our society -- past, present and in the future. He will take us through his entrepreneurial adventure of KCC -- going from 2 lawyers and a dream to a few hundred people and industry-leader status in just a few years. Finally, Jonathan will talk about life after a successful entrepreneurial journey, and the fact that entrepreneurs don't get to a "finish line," but instead oftentimes find themselves re-engaging in new businesses to satisfy the entrepreneurial drive.

Fun, energetic, engaging and educational -- Jonathan's talk promises to leave you with a better understanding of what it means to be an entrepreneur and grow a business from scratch ... all with some great Michigan commentary along the way.

Jonathan Carson (AB '94), a successful technology entrepreneur in the Los Angeles area, pursued the law school path after his undergraduate years at UM and then went to practice corporate-bankruptcy law with Kirkland & Ellis, a global law firm based in Chicago. After two years in practice, Jonathan and a colleague founded KCC, a technology firm focused on streamlining the administrative aspects of large corporate bankruptcy cases (working with clients such as Circuit City, Blockbuster, Washington Mutual and dozens of Detroit-based automotive businesses, just to name a few). He and his business partner grew KCC to more than 300 people with offices around the country and sold the business to Computershare (ASX: CPU), a large Australian public company, in 2009. After transitioning the business over the course of a few years, Jonathan left KCC and now serves on a variety of corporate and non-profit boards, and he is back in the entrepreneurial arena with a water-technology start-up based in Santa Monica and launching later this Summer.

Co - Sponsors include Organizational Studies, The Center for Entrepreneurship, The Zell Lurie Institute, Masters of Entrepreneurship Program, and OptiMize